For
over thirty years, the credit "A John Waters Film" at the
beginning of a movie has brought anticipation and revulsion to
moviegoers often simultaneously. It doesn't take long to
recognize a John Waters movie. Maybe you recognize a member of his
recurring repertory company of actors (which includes such
performers as Divine, Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, Edith Massey
and, more recently, Patricia Hearst and Ricki Lake). Maybe an
obscure 50's or 60's rock song on the soundtrack strikes you as a
quintessential John Waters tune. Maybe the hair seems a little too
big to be in anybody else's movie. Or maybe you recognize the
location as being in or around Waters' beloved Baltimore, Maryland,
where he has filmed every single one of his movies (and that kind of
loyalty, I'm sure, has got to be a record for a filmmaker). Whatever
it is, you can start watching any of his movies at any point and
within less than five minutes, you know you're watching a John
Waters movie.

On the other hand, it's very possible that you may know who John
Waters is without ever having seen one of his films. Waters is a
Persona Director, which is to say that he's a filmmaker with a very
distinct and recognizable public persona that he uses to sell his
movies. Alfred Hitchcock was a Persona Director. Woody Allen is a
Persona Director. But Waters is one of the few whose persona may be
better known than his work. After all, none of his movies have been
huge blockbusters and, at least until recently, many of his most
notorious films have required a search. Thanks to DVD, this has
changed. Most of Waters' feature-length films are now available on
DVD (still missing in action are his very earliest black-and-white
shorts and the Universal-distributed Cry-Baby
starring Johnny Depp).

For both the uninitiated and the Waters faithful, The
Bits offers the following exercise in poor taste: an
introduction to the films of John Waters. But beware. These movies
contain nudity, perverse sex acts, extreme violence and some of the
finest cinematic examples of scatology ever filmed. As the ad copy
for Desperate Living reads,
the world may never be the same again!